Video 16:03
Abbott defends 'fair' parental leave plan

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says a tax on business is the 'fairest' way to fund his new paid parental leave scheme, which he says gives parents "real time and real money".

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Just a short time ago, the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott joined us from our Parliament House studio.

Tony Abbott, good to have your company.

TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER: Nice to be with you, Leigh.

LEIGH SALES: The Government's described your maternity leave plan as a sham policy with no detail, no costings and no timeline. Let's address those points one by one. If you win government, when do you commit to introducing this?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, it will happen soon after we win government, because what I will never be is someone, who like Kevin Rudd, talks about important things on the never never.

You'll never see from me policy announced but not operative for two, three, four, five or 30 years, which is the kind of thing that you've seen from Kevin Rudd.

LEIGH SALES: OK. Well, let's be specific, though: if it's not gonna be two, three, four or five years does that mean you commit to introducing this in your first two years in office, were you to win?

TONY ABBOTT: Yes.

LEIGH SALES: How much do you project that it will cost annually?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, the total cost of this will be about $3.8 billion. About $1 billion will come from the baby bonus, $2.7 billion though I'm anticipating will come from a levy on the taxable incomes of larger businesses.

LEIGH SALES: So if you're putting a levy on big business, what happens in a time of economic downturn when takings are less? How then are you going to get this $2.7 billion?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, obviously if there was a very serious economic downturn, you would have to make it up subsequently, but over time there would be every expectation that that would be more than enough to meet the cost of the scheme.

LEIGH SALES: Where would you make it up from, though, in the interim period?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, the point I should make, Leigh, is that what I've said today is that we are committed to a serious paid parental leave scheme that involves real time, six months, real money, the mother's normal wage and it will be funded by a levy on the income of larger businesses. Now that's the commitment.

I've also said that Sharman Stone, who is my shadow minister responsible in this area, will consult with interested parties and all of those details will be decided and announced in good time before the election.

LEIGH SALES: Who have you consulted on this policy before you announced it - big business, womens' groups? Who had input?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, I've certainly consulted quite widely over the months and years on this. You might remember, Leigh, that I've changed my mind on some important ...

LEIGH SALES: I do, actually. I'm coming to that.

TONY ABBOTT: On some important issues regarding paid parental leave. You might also remember, Leigh, that this was something that I put in my book, which was published last year.

So there has been a lot of input into this, but in the end obviously I take responsibility for the policy that comes forward.

LEIGH SALES: On this specific policy though about levying big business, have you talked to big businesses about that?

TONY ABBOTT: I haven't formally consulted with big business in the sense of sitting down and having a discussion with the Business Council, but I did talk to a number of people about it, a number of people who I think are insightful in this area.

LEIGH SALES: The Business Council today has been quite critical of it. Should you perhaps have consulted with them before announcing it?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, Leigh, I didn't expect that this policy would be universally popular with everyone. Of course, the entities that pay would prefer not to pay.

What I would say though to big business is to think of this as citizens, think of this as Australians, not just as big business people and surely it is high time to give the families of Australia, the mothers of Australia, a fair go.

Why shouldn't paid parental leave be as much a part of working as is holiday pay, as is sick pay and as are retirement benefits?

LEIGH SALES: But why should the top 3,000 businesses in Australia have to bear the load?

TONY ABBOTT: Because they have a much greater capacity to pay and because these - by doing it this way, we don't have a situation where you are gonna find small business in particular less willing to take on younger women staffers.

I would have preferred to have done this without any extra cost on anyone, but the fact of the matter is, Leigh, there is no magic pudding.

If we are gonna have a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme any time soon, the fairest way to do it is for it to be a cost on business, and the fairest way to make it a cost on business is to ask larger businesses, the businesses that have the greatest capacity to pay, the businesses that have suffered least through the global financial crisis, they're the people who can best bear it.

LEIGH SALES: Is that consistent with Liberal and conservative values?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, that's a fair point and I have no doubt that there will be some of my colleagues who will be a bit anxious about this. I have no doubt whatsoever about this.

But I think that this is pro-family, it's pro-child, it's pro-mother, and in the end, it's gonna produce a much stronger economy, because if we look after mothers in the workforce, we'll have more kids, and there is no greater contribution to the future economic strength of Australia than the kids we have now.

LEIGH SALES: You mentioned before how you'd changed your mind on this idea. Let me read you a quote from an interview you did with the PM program in 2002. You said, ...

TONY ABBOTT: And look, I'm fully aware of that quote, Leigh. I have changed my mind.

LEIGH SALES: I'm sure you are. Our viewers ...

TONY ABBOTT: And isn't it a good thing to change your mind as your understanding grows?

LEIGH SALES: It is in some cases. What I'd like to get to, though, is what has caused you to change your mind.

In case our viewers don't remember the quote, let me read it out: "I'm dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing. I think that making businesses pay what seems to them two wages to get one worker. Almost nothing could be more calculated to make businesses feel that the odds are stacked against them. So, voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave, over this government's dead body," being the Howard Government.

That is quite a change of heart.

TONY ABBOTT: Yeah, no, look, I accept that.

LEIGH SALES: So what's brought it about?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, what's brought it about is deeper understanding of the practical difficulties of women who are trying to juggle families and careers. We should not ...

LEIGH SALES: And how have you come to that deeper understanding?

TONY ABBOTT: By, I suppose, being more conscious of the burdens that friends and family members are carrying and of thinking more deeply about the sorts of choices that I would like to be available for my own daughters.

Now, by all means say I've changed my mind. I have changed my mind on this, I accept that.

But I think that where circumstances change and your understanding deepens, the mature thing to do is to adjust your position, and that's what I've done.

And don't think this is suddenly - as I said, I did put this in my book, which came out in July of last year.

LEIGH SALES: There are cynics who'll say that making this announcement on International Women's Day is about shoring up your credentials with female voters, particularly those in the 20 to 40 age group.

TONY ABBOTT: There is nothing wrong with good policy, and if good policy appeals to people, well, isn't that what democracy is all about?

LEIGH SALES: Let's move on to the hospital reforms announced by the Government. Do you rule out supporting that plan in the Parliament?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, the problem with Mr Rudd's so-called plan is that it doesn't actually end the blame game. There won't be any extra money for hospitals any time soon. Patients won't notice any difference any time soon.

LEIGH SALES: So does that mean you won't support it?

TONY ABBOTT: There are no extra beds, there are no extra doctors, there are no extra nurses. So I think it's a very bad plan.

There are some aspects of the plan that could have been done better and if the Prime Minister had been prepared to take the state premiers into his confidence, things like cased-mixed funding and the local hospital networks might have been better done.

LEIGH SALES: So if you think there is room for improvement there, does that mean you would be willing to negotiate with the Government down the track to try to get this package through?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I am prepared to support good policy. I'm not prepared to support bad policy.

On the fundamental issue, though, of ending the blame game, this plan does not work and we've had the spectacle over the last few days of the Prime Minister who used to say all was gonna be sweetness and harmony between him and the premiers, abusing the state premiers for carping and moaning and not getting with the program.

There are few things more arrogant than the sight of a Prime Minister abusing people just because they don't agree with him.

LEIGH SALES: I'd like to try to pin down what the Coalition's position, though, is going to be on this plan. Do you rule out supporting it in the Parliament?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, we've said that the most urgent need and the change that hospitals most need is community control, and we've said that within six months of taking office we will renegotiate the healthcare arrangements with New South Wales and Queensland to provide for local boards for all major hospitals.

So that is a good thing, and if his local hospital networks amount to that, well then obviously we'd be prepared to talk to him about that, but I think he's got a lot more in mind than just that.

LEIGH SALES: A poll in Fairfax newspapers today had eight out of 10 voters supporting the Rudd plan. Clearly they're so fed up with the health system that they're prepared to give something else a try.

Is there a danger here that you're going to find yourself in an election campaign where health becomes the major battleground?

TONY ABBOTT: Leigh, I'm very happy to fight the election campaign on whatever the issues of the day are, but let's not forget that the Prime Minister told us up hill and down dale for two years that the greatest moral challenge of our time was climate change.

Now he's trying to tell us, I presume, that the greatest moral challenge of our time is public hospital policy. Look, we will have a good hospital policy.

What it won't be is Kevin Rudd's policy, which basically involves a great, big, new bureaucracy. His response to climate change was a great, big, new tax. His response on public hospitals is a great, big, new bureaucracy, but it's pretty clear that as on many other things, this is a guy who's all announcement and no follow-through.

He is, to coin a phrase, all hat and no cowboy. He can't actually take even his own state premiers with him on this.

LEIGH SALES: On the 60 Minutes program last night Liz Hayes asked you how you felt about homosexuality and you said you'd probably feel a bit threatened, as so many people do. What did you mean?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, it was a spontaneous answer, but the truth is I try to take people as I find them. I've always tried to be that way and I hope as I get older I become better at it.

LEIGH SALES: But, I just - I didn't understand when I was watching the program what the word "threatened" meant, though. Were you making a joke that you feel threatened that men hit onto you, or that you feel that traditional families are threatened? What was "threatened" referring to?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, there is no doubt that it challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things, but as I also said on the program, it happens, it's a fact of life and we have to treat people as we find them.

LEIGH SALES: There was another part where you said to your daughter that one of the reasons she was happy that you were Opposition Leader was because it meant that your political career was one step closer to its end.

Is the Tony Abbott plan to go all out to the current election and then if you're not the Prime Minister to bow out of politics?

TONY ABBOTT: I don't think that I should rule anything in or out, except that I am running absolutely flat out to win, Leigh.

This is the supreme challenge of my life. Every ounce of energy and commitment and will that I can direct to winning will be so directed.

LEIGH SALES: You don't bring that level of passion to something unless you have a very clear vision for what you want the nation to be. What is the Tony Abbott vision for Australia?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I suppose it is an Australia where, individually and collectively, we can better be our best selves. That's what I'd like.

Now, obviously I have the standard liberal-conservative predilections for smaller government, lower taxes, greater freedom, a fair go for families and respect for institutions that have stood the test of time. So they are my general instincts, but in the end, I'm not that proscriptive.

I accept that everyone is different. I want us to be our best selves as a nation and as people.

LEIGH SALES: How do we become our best selves as people?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, by, I think, adopting some of the policies that I've already talked about.

I think the Green Army will give people a chance to be practical environmentalists. We've gotta sort out the Murray-Darling water situation. There's gotta be one level of government that is accountable to everyone looking after the Murray-Darling.

We do have to have community control of public hospitals, and if we can extend that principle more widely, I think that would be great.

We do need a fair go for families, and my announcement today about paid parental leave is just the beginning of my ideas for establishing a fair go for families, because single income families need a fair go as well and they don't always get it at the moment.

I think that the issue at the next election won't be the former government's workplace policies, it'll be the current Government's policies, under which some workers are $300 a week worse off, in breach of Labor's promises.

So, there's a lot there. I think that people will be under no doubt, Leigh, that if they elect the Coalition at the next election, Australia will be different and better.

LEIGH SALES: Tony Abbott, we're out of time. Thankyou very much for joining us tonight.